1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to the field of advertising systems, and is more specifically directed to a online bidding advertisement system.
2. Art Background
Electronic exchanges, including online auctions, have proliferated along with the Internet. These electronic exchanges aim to provide a high degree of trading efficiency by bringing together a large number of buyers and sellers. Such exchanges are typically focused on directly matching the bids and offers of buyers and sellers. Conventional transactions on these exchanges are typically between (i) buyers and sellers, (ii) intermediaries (e.g., brokers, which may be a buyer or seller), or (iii) buyers or sellers and intermediaries.
The proliferation of Internet activity has also generated tremendous growth for advertising on the Internet. Typically, advertisers (e.g., buyers of ad space) and online publishers (sellers of ad space) have agreements with one or more advertising networks (ad networks), which provide for serving an advertiser's banner or ad across multiple publishers, and concomitantly provide for each publisher having access to a large number of advertisers. Ad networks, which may also manage payment and reporting, may also attempt to target certain Internet users with particular advertisements to increase the likelihood that the user will take an action with respect to the ad. From an advertiser's perspective, effective targeting is important for achieving a high return on investment (ROI).
Online advertising markets exhibit undesirable inefficiencies when buyers and sellers are unable to transact. For instance, although a publisher may be subscribed to many ad networks, and one or more of those ad networks may transact inventory with other ad networks, only one of the ad networks to which the publisher is subscribed is involved in selling (e.g., auctioning) a given ad space for the publisher. The publisher, or a gatekeeper used by the publisher, selects or prioritizes which ad network, or advertiser having a direct agreement with the publisher, serves the impression for a given ad request.
Within this document, one of ordinary skill recognizes certain abbreviations such as, for example, cost per impression, Cost Per Mille, or cost per 1000 impressions (CPM), cost per click (CPC), cost per acquisition (CPA), effective CPM (eCPM).